Greater New Orleans

LSU shortstop Alex Bregman, left, stares at the ground after his error in the 8th inning against UCLA that allowed the winning run to score in a 2-1 Bruins win in the College World Series. Teammates Christian Ibarra, center, and second baseman JaCoby Jones, right, are also dejected.

OMAHA,
Neb. -- To bunt or not to bunt? If I had the skill of William
Shakespeare, I'd turn a phrase on that, but it was a short night, so no such
luck.

Let me throw out this
disclaimer: I hate the bunt. With every fiber of my baseball fandom. I loathe the
idea of simply handing a team an out. Period.

Are there any times
when the bunt makes sense, much as I wince whenever I see it? Grudgingly, I'll
concede that.

Was LSU's 9th
inning a right time to bunt? That seems to be a sore spot for some fans, who
have honed in on that instead of the other things that were much more the
ingredients of a gut-wrenching 2-1 loss to UCLA on Sunday in the first
round of the College World Series.

Never mind the two
massive errors that led to unearned runs in a pitchers' duel and put the Tigers
in a hole. Disregard the dazzling pitching performance by Bruins pitcher Adam
Plutko.

Here are a few of my thoughts:
Aaron Nola pitched his guts out, but Plutko was just a little better. The
Bruins hitters struggled all night long, but were still just a little better
than the Tigers because they attacked early in counts, knowing there weren't
going to be a ton of hittable pitches headed their way.

One other basic and simple statement: Baseball happened Sunday night. UCLA created some breaks, LSU missed some and the ball bounced more in the Bruins' favor than the Tigers. Happens in every game that ever plays out on the diamond.

Back to the question,
though: Was LSU's 9th inning a right time to bunt?

With the Tigers down a
run to begin the inning, and with Mason Katz on first base after he reached on
an error, I would much rather let hitters hit and not give away outs against a
pitcher like UCLA closer David Berg, who's pretty darn good at getting outs on
how own. Maybe in a tie game, the bunt makes more sense. Not when a team is
fighting from behind, again in my opinion.

Raph Rhymes followed
Katz, and for two pitches, LSU coach Paul Mainieri sent the bunt signal to his
senior left fielder, which was understandable. I still didn't like it, but que
sera, sera.

When Berg fell behind
Rhymes 2-and-0, that's when I thought the bunt needed to take a back seat.
Rhymes is the best hit-and-run man the Tigers have. On a 2-and-0 count, Berg
had to come with a strike - and that's nothing uncommon for a pitcher who has
walked now 9 batters in 72.1 innings.

Raph Rhymes, center, looks back at the dugout in disbelief after he was called out at first base in the 9th inning against UCLA at the College World Series on Sunday. Mason Katz was called out at second base. (Photo by Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)

A strike headed to a
good contact hitter with a team down by a run. A team that has shown so much
all season that it has a knack for comeback wins. A hitter who makes solid
contact and has delivered a litany of clutch hits in his career.

Simple: Hit-and-run.

That's what Mainieri
called, Berg threw a strike and Rhymes pounced, smoking a ground ball to the
left side. Right at third baseman Kevin Kramer, who was hugging the line in a
no-doubles defense.

Instead of a hit or, at
the very least, the avoidance of a double play, UCLA turned a 5-4-3 twin
killing.

That was followed by a
walk by Christian Ibarra -- Berg's ninth of the season -- and Tyler Moore's
pinch-hit single, which lends itself to obvious dot-connecting. Basically, the
thinking seems to be, had Rhymes bunted Katz over, then he would've scored on
Moore's base hit.

Except you can't make
those assumptions in baseball. With Katz at second base, Berg likely pitches
much differently to Ibarra for sure and probably Moore as well. The infield
defense would likely have been set differently as well.

And the way Moore's ball
was struck -- a medium-speed roller through the infield -- there is no guarantee
Katz would've been able to score on the play, or if third-base coach Will Davis
even sends him.

All of that is
conjecture and hypothetical. Might make it easier to criticize Mainieri, which seems
to be the path of easiest resistance for some, but it lacks logic if you slow
down and think it through.

If you want to jump on the
woulda-shoulda-coulda merry-go-round, you might as well talk about how TD
Ameritrade Park -- as beautiful as it is -- is set up wrong for the College World
Series.

Yes, all eight teams
have to deal with the same dimensions, so put that dagger away before
sharpening it up.

But all season long,
college baseball teams play in ballparks where home runs are at least a
feasible part of the game plan. Then when they get to Omaha for the biggest
stage of the season, they might as well tuck that option back in the tool box.

Yeah, Katz managed to
smack a home run on Sunday, the first of the CWS. But it required him hitting
the ball to literally the only place he could've gotten it out. Ibarra
had two better swings that wound up as fly-ball outs on the warning track, and
Oregon State's Danny Hayes should've had a game-winning three-run homer against
Mississippi State on Saturday.

LSU's defense, especially shortstop Alex Bregman, need to come back strong against North Carolina and play a cleaner game to keep the 2013 season alive.
(Photo by Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)

That's a lot of
digression, though. And none of it matters
now for LSU.

The Tigers lost because
the Bruins did just enough things better and won the kind of game they've won
all season long. Now it's on LSU's shoulders to dig down and find a way to come
out fighting and execute better.

Play cleaner on
defense. Adjust the offensive approach if needed and don't chase tantalizing
high pitches that may or not be strikes. And -- ugh! -- if called upon to bunt,
get the job done.

The season isn't over.
There's work to do, and it's a lot harder work now.

If that work involves a
bunt now and then, OK. Won't be my favorite thing to see, but I'll survive. Can the Tigers? We're about
to find out.